Diabetes Outreach

In an effort to reach out to the communities, we split up into 8 teams to scour the country for new cases of kids with diabetes, create relationships with endocrinologists, and maintain the relationships we have with the camper families. Jairo, Kendra and I went to Guayaquil with somewhat of a plan.

Due to competing organizations that are for-profit whereas we are non-profit, we lost a few kids to a competing camp conveniently being held on the same dates as our camp. However, Kendra, Jairo and I did find a few new kids to add to our camper list. So, how do we find these kids? We visited various hospitals and clinics and just asked the local diabetes educator, endocrinologist or pediatrician if they happen to know of any kids with Type I diabetes. The hospitals varied from the very rich and private to the government funded and crowded. For better or worse, the doctors have no patient privacy issues and freely gave us the kids names, their phone numbers and the names of the parents. Next year, we could do a better job of maintaining these relationships so that the doctors give us the names of the kids throughout the year. Many hospitals don't have electronic records so unless the doctor sees a kid with Type I that day, they won't be able to find the info. After recieving the info, we just then cold-called the kids and set up home visits. The families also, for the most part, don't seem to mind meeting complete strangers who know about their kid's condition. The first family we met has a 5 year old girl, Ayisha. Despite the last minute request to see if she would be interested in attending, the parents agreed to send her after we spent 30 minutes educating them on better ways to measure blood sugar, inject insulin and count carbs. We will need to help her learn to inject insulin in places other than her stomach. The area around that part is becoming hard due to the repetitive injections and the more hard it becomes, the less insulin gets absorbed. From an economic perspective, the parents will then have to spend more money on insulin due to absorption issues. However, if they rotate the sites of injection, she should be fine. She is absolutely precious although a bit closed off. The parents are worried that she will not open up to other campers since she is so shy. I can't wait to see if she does since most kids change quite dramatically after camp.

We also met up with Carlos, a 13 year old boy who will be in my camper group. He is extremely skinny and never measures his blood sugar. He only takes the base line insulin and no rapid insulin to account for the increase in carbohydrates. We didn't get a chance to measure his blood sugar during the visit and I will be interested to see what it is on the bus to camp. I think Jairo convinced him to come by mentioning all the pretty girls who will be there. The parents even laughed at that comment.

We found a few more campers who can not make this camp, but might be able to come to the next camp, strenghthened relationships with doctors and reconnected with old campers. One of our campers will make a public announcement on the radio where she works about diabetes and the camp. Yeah!

In-between visits, Jairo and I had lunch at the Malecon, a boardwalk that is pretty touristy but with a beautiful view. We are pretty beat overall from all the cold calls but overall excited for camp. Tomorrow, we head to Santa Elena to meet with campers and then take the 4am 11 hr journey to camp where we will meet up with other campers from around Ecuador.
We went shopping tonight for all the snacks and honey and cola for emergencies. I just hope we didn't forget anything. Can't wait for the journey!